


you can always count on me

by towokuwusatsuwu



Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
Genre: Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M, Mortality, Sort Of, death discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 08:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13454676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towokuwusatsuwu/pseuds/towokuwusatsuwu
Summary: Kiriya thinks about dying and his inability of, and Kuroto finds his own Kuroto way of reassuring him.





	you can always count on me

Kujo Kiriya supposes he should be less bitter about everything. It isn’t as though Emu would understand what he goes through day in and day out, and it isn’t like Kiriya can expect to still be the center of Emu’s world considering Parado and everything between the two of them.

Emu is human, and flawed, and he deserves to be happy. Kiriya still holds that true in his heart even if Emu doesn’t look at him the same way he used to anymore.

What does it matter if he does? It wasn’t like Kiriya loved him back, not like he wanted.

He needs distance, he thinks. Distance from CR and the constant fighting, and if his work for CR hasn’t guaranteed he deserves a vacation then he doesn’t know what else possibly could. Besides, he doesn’t care one way or another. He has his bike and a location in mind already.

He doesn’t tell anyone he plans on leaving, at least not directly. He leaves a note for the team under a small cake box from a local bakery, already able to imagine Hiiro’s sour look at finding out he took off without running it by any of them first. With any luck, the cake will be enough to sweeten him up and get him off of Kiriya’s back, because Kiriya is not turning his phone on.

The device is turned off and packed into his bag with a few changes of clothes. He knows he can tweak his coding to whatever he wants if he puts his mind to it, but he likes his old clothes just the same. He needs some sense of sameness and continuity in his life after everything he has been through with the looming thought of  _ I’m not going to die like they are _ in his head.

He tells no one about his plans, but as soon as he straddles his bike, he hears a familiar pixelation noise behind him and sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “What do you want, God?” he asks, because he knows who would hover behind him like this.

“Where are you going?” Kuroto asks him, all syrupy sweet and curious and nosier than anyone Kiriay has ever met in his life, including himself, which is saying something. “I saw your note, but I didn’t disturb it. You didn’t leave it for me to find, after all.”

There is nothing in the letter that addresses it to any specific people and no note that it isn’t for certain people to read, and yet Kiriya has to agree with Kuroto— in his head, only, never out loud— that he hadn’t thought of him when he left it behind. Mostly, he thought of Hiiro and Taiga bitching about him running out on them and about Emu being concerned.

He could ignore Kuroto and not extrapolate his plans to him; it isn’t as though he’s beholden to the man for anything and considers them even after the creation of  _ Doctor Mighty XX _ , where he’d taken enough of Kuroto’s lives to feel some sense of peace. But he finds himself turning around just the same, unsurprised to find Kuroto floating in the air because he can, looking as though he’s stretched out on some surface, head propped up on one arm.

“I need a break from all of this.” He waves his hand around the parking garage attached to the hospital before turning back around, getting his bike straightened out beneath him. “You seem to find all this amusing so maybe it doesn’t tire you out, but I’m starting to get sick of it.”

“My employees gained more paid vacation time the longer they worked for me, so I do understand the need to have time away even if I never took any myself.” Kuroto makes a humming noise at him, and Kiriya rolls his eyes but refuses to turn back around, uninterested in whatever Kuroto has to say. “So you’re going off alone? What if something happens?”

“There’s not like there’s anyone I want to invite to come with me.” The location he has in mind is a hotel tucked up into the trees on a high hill with a hell of a view and enough isolation from the rest of the world that he cannot possibly imagine bringing someone like Emu, who would stay inside playing games all day anyway. Inviting Taiga or Hiiro just seems weird.

“If you say so,” Kuroto sing-songs. “Just be safe then, Kiriya. Have a fun time.”

Kiriya smirks at the words, and then finds himself turning around anyway, a question tugging at the back of his mind. “You think you might want a break from all of this, too?”

“Me?” Kuroto lands gracefully on his feet, smoothing out the lines in his dark gray blazer. “Since when are you interested in spending more time with me?”

“Don’t your godly talents need a rest sometime?”

Kuroto looks thoughtful. “I’ll give you that one. Where are we going?”

“Somewhere where I can get some peace and quiet, so you better behave when we’re there.” Kiriya shifts forward on his motorcycle, enough to give Kuroto enough ride to hop on the back with him. “Now come on. I don’t want anyone running down here to stop me.”

He doesn’t normally let people ride on his bike with him, and he had let Emu do it a few times but only a few and certainly not for anything but fighting. They never had time for anything else before Emu cared about Parado more than anyone else. Kuroto settles down behind him and reaches around, linking his fingers together over Kiriya’s stomach, resting his chin on his shoulder so that when he exhales, warm breath curls against Kiriya’s cheek. He’s sure it’s supposed to be unnerving in some way, shape, or form… But it isn’t.

Kiriya should probably reevaluate his life if having Kuroto wrapped around him from behind on his bike isn’t bothering him like it should be, but he doesn’t have time for that. Maybe at the hotel. For now, he just pulls out of his parking spot and takes off, determined to make it onto the road and in the general direction of his target destination as quickly as possible. Like he told Kuroto, he has no desire to deal with people trying to run him down and ask him why he’s leaving. He doesn’t have time to explain to them how difficult all of this has been.

He doesn’t want to see the expressions on their faces when he reminds them he can’t die.

* * *

It takes hours to reach the hotel, but Kuroto is surprisingly quiet enough that Kiriya can almost pretend he isn’t there at all and just enjoy the wind on his face.

He’s missed being able to go out on rides when he wants to, but he knows as well as anyone else that he can’t do whatever he wants to anymore. Fighting the Bugsters to protect humanity comes first and foremost these days, but it’s nice to have time away from all of that.

The hotel is rustic and warm and perfect, and Kiriya drops his bag down on the center of the bed before throwing himself across it, groaning as he sinks down into the soft mattress. It gives him a decent angle to watch Kuroto walks across the room to the sliding glass doors that lead out onto the patio and the killer view overlooking the scenery and, at a distance, the ocean.

It almost feels weird to see Kuroto in a place like this, so different from his expensive office or his equally expensive house. When he glances over his shoulder and meets Kiriya’s eyes, there almost seems to be a bubble of silence in the room between them that neither of them wants to pop. Kiriya lifts a hand to wave lazily at him and Kuroto smirks before turning away. A different person would care what that smirk means.

“Why are we all the way out here, anyway?” Kuroto asks. “I know what you said in the garage. Now I want to know the truth.”

Kiriya huffs up at him. “I can’t want a little time away from all the fighting?”

“I thought you cared about your patients. Or, well…” Kuroto trails off, resting a hand against the glass of the door before him. “I suppose it’s hard to care for patients who are already dead, considering your prior position. Do you find it hard to care for people still alive?”

The implication is insulting, but Kiriya doesn’t think too much of it. Kuroto can be cruel, but he can also be blunt and doesn’t always seem to have enough tact to know when one is appropriate and the other is not. “Dunno why you made it so us Bugsters don’t die but I end up having to think a lot about it and I’m not exactly happy about that.”

Kuroto hums. “So this is about our lack of mortality, is it?”

“You know Emu’s younger than me, right? He’ll always technically be younger than me ‘cause even if I can’t age physically, age is about more than that.” Kiriya tucks his hands beneath his head, fingers twisting in the hair at the back of his head and pulling. “He’ll eventually grow old and die. It’s what humans do. And I’m gonna have to sit back and watch that happen knowing that isn’t ever going to happen to me.”

“You have something against not dying? Ironic, given—” Kuroto stops himself in time.

Kiriya pushes himself up from the bed, comes over to stand next to Kuroto beside the door. “Maybe I do. Maybe there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to see the next seventeen decades while everyone I know in my life dies. Doesn’t that seem macabre to you?”

“Not to me personally, no. It gives me great pleasure to think about the fact the people who hurt me are going to get snatched away by old age or disease while I’m untouchable now.” Kuroto grins at him, showing his teeth, more like a wolf about to snatch its prey than a human anymore. Maybe Kuroto had never truly been human at all. “But you speak as though nothing can kill you just because natural causes can’t. If you truly want to die one day, Kujo Kiriya, then say the word. Time may not be able to kill you, but I can.”

The words should be startling, or more like a veiled threat perhaps than anything else, but they just startle a relieved laugh out of Kiriya that makes Kuroto lean back and consider him. “Thanks, God, for the offer. Maybe I’ll take you up on it one day. You seemed to enjoy killing me enough the first time around.”

Kuroto shrugs and turns back to looking out the door, gripping one of the knobs and twisting so he can step out onto the balcony. Kiriya watches him go before deciding to join him, leaning against the worn wooden railing, fingers pressed into the wood. Next to him, Kuroto sighs and tips his head back, eyes falling closed, and he looks so pleased and relaxed and calm that Kiriya uses that as an excuse inside of his own head when he leans over and up, cursing the difference between their heights as he goes, to kiss Kuroto on the cheek.

Confused dark eyes meet his gaze, one dark brow winging up at him. “Kiriya—”

“Thanks,” he says, and this time he means it more than he probably should. “You don’t just have to stare at the ocean from a distance if you don’t want. It’s not too long of a hike.”

Kuroto opens his mouth to say something, probably to remind Kiriya that Bugsters don’t need to walk anywhere, but he shuts his mouth and settles for a nod and a smile instead, gesturing as if for Kiriya to lead the way.

He still lets out a startled sound when Kiriya puts both hands on the railing and pulls himself up and over, falling two stories to land in a neat crouch in the grass below. A glance up shows him Kuroto leaning over the railing, disbelief written all over his face.

What’s the fun in never dying if you don’t take advantage of it a little?


End file.
